Brandishing a Title, Tony Brandishing Lebhar, Weller Book Works

The last 10 years have been a huge shakeup. … We’re a close-knit industry despite the fact that we’re competitors, and to see stores go out of business is hard—it’s really hard.

There were people in the industry who urged Tony and me to not move the store, to simply close it, and take the assets from that business and live very comfortably, which we could have. But I can’t be somebody who does nothing. I can’t be a lady who lunches. I have to work, and I’ve pretty much made myself unfit for nearly anything else at this point. I could go back to libraries, but I really love this, and Tony really loves it. It’s what we want to keep doing until we can’t do it anymore.

So it was worth not taking the money and running, and, you know, it was a financial risk. We had to move or die. It was a risk to come here, but it was the right risk to take for us.